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AUTHOR'S STYLE

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Chaucer uses several stylistic devices to liven his portraits of the
tellers of the tales. One such device was the use of what the Medieval
people termed "the colors of rhetoric". This merely meant the
devices by which an artist varied and elaborated his usage of words. Chaucer
followed the rhetorical principles laid down by Gaufred de Vinsauf in
his "Nova Poetria". These include the description whereby a
character is described from the top to the bottom right down to the toe
- nail. An example is Chaucer’s description of the magnificent cock Chaunticleer
in the Nun's Priest’s Tale. The second principle is exclamation whereby
the emotional importance of the situation is highlighted. This is Chaucer’s
favorite device. The third device is digression, which involves digressions
to develop a point of view within the story. There are numerous examples
of such digressions. Chaunticleer in the Nun's Priest Tale for instance
cites classical authorities to support his argument that dreams are forewarnings
of the future.

Another device is collation or the introduction of comparisons of moderate
length. Chaucer frequently adds color to his tales through the use of
comparisons. Yet another device is interpretation which enlarges and reinterprets
an already stated opinion. The circumlocution amplifies a simple idea
by a long - winded description. The opposito is another device whereby
a fact is stated by denying its opposite. For instance the Parson’s character
is established in the General Prologue by stressing what he does not have
in common with the average parish priests who let out their benefices
on hire and run off to London in search of money by singing masses for
the dead. Yet another device is occupation which is a method of cutting
a tale short. For instance the Knight does not describe Duke Theseus’s
heroic battles by saying that it will make the tale too long and cumbersome.
There are many other principles of rhetoric but these are the main ones
used by Chaucer to add vibrancy and life to his magnificent book, The
Canterbury Tales.

CHAUCER'S USE OF LANGUAGE

Chaucer wrote in Middle English which extended from 1100 AD to 1500 AD His
English is a kind of mongrel language enriched by extensive borrowing
of French words. While Chaucer’s language sounds strange to the modern
ear, surprisingly his South-East Midland dialect is the closest to Modern
English. Chaucer’s language evolved from Old English which extended from
597 AD to 1100 AD Middle English thus has certain peculiar attributes
which it acquired from its source language. Old English was an inflected
language; that is, the endings of several words changed in accordance
with their semantic function. Much of this difficult intricacy disappeared
by Chaucer’s time. But many words retained an -e ending, which is not
pronounced in Modern English. For example, ‘ende’, ‘newe’ and the like
have inflectional endings, which are simply not pronounced in Modern English.
Words also retained the ending ‘s’ or ‘es’ in the plural and in the possessive.